Busy, but happy (and thankful)

Alright, boys and girls:  When do we plant our turnips?

25th of July, wet or dry!

When do we harvest our turnips?

25th of October, drunk or sober!

So, at 6:30 this morning, I planted a row of turnips.  Then I planted a row of carrots, although I have little faith they'll grow.  This will be the third time I've planted carrots this year.  But since I have plenty of idle places in my garden, why not try again?  Carrots don't like hot weather, and it's going to be in the nineties and even over one hundred for the next two weeks or so.  We had 6/10ths an inch of rain yesterday.  It's amazing how such a small amount of rain can perk up garden plants.  I've been putting quart freezer bags of tomatoes in the freezer.  I'm thinking about going ahead and using some of the garden tomatoes to make spaghetti sauce, although I won't put meat in it until I get it out of the freezer to use.  I find myself with more tomatoes than I can use.  Those two Red Deuce tomatoes are still giving me huge, tasteless tomatoes; but I found out they are just fine for spaghetti sauce.  The grandson and Alexandra were here Saturday for spaghetti, and everyone agreed the sauce tasted just like it always does.

These are the two Red Deuce tomato plants that really bear lots of big tomatoes but aren't that tasty.  They'll probably be gone in a couple weeks, because the leaves are very blighty.  But I'm freezing them as they get ripe, so I won't have to buy canned tomatoes when I make chili.  All my frozen tomatoes from last year are gone.  There are plenty  of tasty tomatoes coming on now from the other plants, although some blight is on all of them.

I finally have okra, so I can make smothered okra again.  For a month or so, I was only bring in one or two lonely okras; by the time I had enough to make fried okra, the oldest ones left something to be desired.  I finally put the soaker hose on that row and they were happy enough to start doing their job.  They are still only about as high as my face.  Until the last few days, they were about to my chin, which made it hard to get all the okras because those broad leaves hide the product.  And of course, the leaves make me itch when I have to reach through the leaves from the top.  Picking tomatoes also leaves my arms itching, not to mention they put green slime on me so when I wash my hands and forearms with soap, the soap foams green as it comes off.  But tomatoes are worth it.

Cliff just headed out to keep an appointment with his new pulmonologist in Lees Summit.  I was going to go along, but I'm in the middle of cooking dinner.  The green beans I picked are done, because I thought I was going to go with him and wanted to be able to just warm them up when we got home.  But then I picked everything I needed for the smothered okra, started making it, and realized I had worked myself into a corner... so here I sit, wondering if I should go ahead and make some spaghetti sauce to put in the deep freeze.

I bought some plants labeled as bell peppers in the spring, but they are not!  The fruits are big and sort of pointy at the end.  They do taste like bell peppers, though, but they work well for stuffed peppers.  My daughter tells me they are poblano peppers.  They are a good substitute for green peppers in recipes, so I won't complain.  I have three or four bell pepper plants growing from seeds, and hopefully they'll be giving me something for bell peppers before it's too late.

I have dishes to wash, so I'm going to get busy.  

Here's my dog Gabe watching my husband eat.  He will watch in the same  position until the very last bite, every time.

Yes, the couch is a mess and everything is crooked.  Just like me!

Strange things happen sometimes

First, let me tell you about the new picture at the top:  Cliff was cutting the weeds in the pasture behind our house; it used to be a real pasture, but ugly weeds have taken over.  I hate it, but there's no use buying expensive seeds when there aren't any animals on the place to eat the plants.  He very seldom uses the big White tractor, even though it has a working air conditioner and he has asthma, because his more modern little John Deere uses much less gas, and does most of the jobs on our 40-acre play farm in a superb manner; he does use a mask if he's mowing with the John Deere, though.  

But he loves bigger, older classic tractors.  I'm not outside as much as I used to be, and I don't carry a camera around all the time looking for a good picture for my blog.  But when I saw Cliff mowing, I decided to see what I could do, and took half a dozen shots.  I love this one, with those clouds in the blue sky.  He likes it too.

Now, about the strange thing that happened the other day.  Both of us were sitting in the living room looking at our computers and all of a sudden, I had no Internet.  I told Cliff our Internet was down; some fifteen minutes later, I noticed he was still surfing the net.  I checked my Macbook... still no Internet.  Hmm.

There are two iPads in our house.  Cliff has the oldest one, an iPad Mini, which was Cora's to play with when we babysat her.  Later I let Cliff have it for reading his library books.  Since Cliff had Internet and the Macbook did not, I decided to use my iPad, but again, no Internet.  How could this be possible?  I tried the old Mini... still no Internet.  Cliff was loving it.  He likes to make fun of my Apple products, especially the Macbook, because it doesn't have a touch screen.

We have Nexus for Internet.  They usually fix any glitches promptly.  I got a text message saying that there was a problem in some places, and they were working to find whatever was wrong.  Even then, Cliff surfed on.  After four hours or so, my Internet was working again on all three Apple devices.  

I've never had anything like that happen before, but Cliff needed some laughs, so I guess it's all for the good.